Thanks for the article Jonathan.
James Hasik has an article up that makes a pretty strong case for the Army developing (or rather buying) an airborne tank.
I agree on that need but this part of his article caught my attention....
You're talking about 50,000 plus boat spaces....That's alot of jump pay!
Are airborne units obsolete? Do they provide more utility than a light infantry unit that would have to be airlanded?
I'm a traditionalist, so I believe that the speed and surprise that the airborne give our country is a need, not a want. But in this budget environment you can bet that someone, somewhere is asking these same questions.
Read the entire article on Airborne Tanks here.
Note: I've got to get ahold of that paper (Airborne Illusion).
James Hasik has an article up that makes a pretty strong case for the Army developing (or rather buying) an airborne tank.
I agree on that need but this part of his article caught my attention....
As Mark De Vore wrote in The Airborne Illusion, a 2004 working paper at MIT, the history of parachute operations points to debatable utility. During the Second World War, perhaps half of the major airborne operations were fiascos, if not outfight disasters. Since the Second World War, only two airborne operations have involved more than a battalion: the two-battalion American drop on Grenada in 1984, and the six-battalion American drop on Panama in 1989. Even the vaunted Israeli 35th Paratroopers Brigade has only made a single combat drop in its history—that of a single battalion on Mitla Pass in 1956, which didn’t go well. Plenty of other assaults at various times were considered and rejected, by Britain, France, the US and others. The memory of the disaster of the 1940s and the proliferation of anti-aircraft missiles were too much to overcome. All the same, parachute formations have survived. De Vore argues that much of this rests with the placement of former paratroopers in high ranks, who defend their regiments in bureaucratic battles. Soviet experience was particularly bad, but the establishment of the Airborne Troops as a separate corps of the Red Army made their reduction bureaucratically difficult. But while he and others scoff at the maintenance of "elite troops that can only be used against third-rate opponents,” (p. 29)Discussions about the utility of the Marine Corps always pop up, but what about the airborne forces. 10 percent of the Army is made up of paratroopers.
You're talking about 50,000 plus boat spaces....That's alot of jump pay!
Are airborne units obsolete? Do they provide more utility than a light infantry unit that would have to be airlanded?
I'm a traditionalist, so I believe that the speed and surprise that the airborne give our country is a need, not a want. But in this budget environment you can bet that someone, somewhere is asking these same questions.
Read the entire article on Airborne Tanks here.
Note: I've got to get ahold of that paper (Airborne Illusion).